Age of Empires Online

Age of Empires Online
Developer(s)	Robot Entertainment Gas Powered Games
Publisher(s)	Microsoft Studios
Series	Age of Empires
Engine	BANG Havok Physics
Version	4.0.0.5772 (March 27, 2012)
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows
Release date(s)	August 16, 2011[1]
Genre(s)	MMORTS
Mode(s)	Multiplayer
Rating(s)	ESRB: E10+ PEGI: 12
Media/distribution	Download
System requirements Windows XP, Windows Vista, or Windows 7 (32- & 64-bit supported) Dual Core processor, 2 GHz or higher 128MB Shader 2 supported video card or higher 1 GB RAM (2.5 GB recommended for 64 bit Windows) 5.0 GB free HD space Broadband internet required[2]

Age of Empires Online (abbreviated AoEO), is a history-based real-time strategy computer game released on August 16, 2011 with digital download and retail distribution.^[3] Based upon the gameplay of the Age of Empires series, it was originally being developed by Robot Entertainment, but on February 24, 2011, it was announced that Gas Powered Games, the creators of Supreme Commander, had taken over production. The game is published by Microsoft.^[4]

The game is free-to-play—it is free for users to play, with the additional option of purchasing premium content. Premium content may include access to many special items and blueprints, and more quests and features. Also, booster packs are now available, such as Defense of Crete and Skirmish. This former gives the player the ability to play in a survival type mode game, while the latter allows up to four humans versus up to four CPU opponents in a more traditional skirmish gamemode. The modes can be played in either single-player or co-op. The game also features several PvP modes for up to four people with the option of a PvP "Champion mode" which fully unlocks the players' tech tree and renders the gear for aesthetics only.

On March 27, 2012, the game premiered on Steam after a major overhaul patch which addressed complaints of an "MMO-like grind" and many other features, along with the debut of the Celtic civilization. The developers later announced that an update in summer 2012 would make the game full free to play if the player chooses, by offering the option to purchase any and all future content through "empire points" earned in game. The player will also be able to purchase the points directly with real money.

Gameplay

Gameplay screenshot showing a battle scene.

Age of Empires Online features much of the gameplay of past games in the series, with the addition of a persistent city that functions when the player is offline, cooperative multiplayer quests, crafting, and trading. The game is an attempt to blend the real-time strategy (RTS) genre with massively multiplayer online gaming. Also, the game features a great quantity of new content, such as crafting items with earned materials.

Gameplay requires the player to develop a civilization from a handful of hunter-gatherers to an expansive empire. To assure victory, the player must gather resources in order to pay for new units, buildings and more advanced technology. Resources must also be preserved, as no new resources become available as the game progresses, for example, trees that are cut down will not grow back. A major component of the game is the advancement through four ages. Advancement between ages is researched at the Town Center, and each advancement brings the player new technologies, weapons, and units.

Civilian units, called "villagers", are used to gather resources. Resources can be used to train units, construct buildings, and research technologies. The game offers four types of resources: food, wood, gold, and stone. Food is obtained by hunting animals, gathering berries, harvesting livestock, farming, and fishing. Wood is gathered by chopping down trees. Gold is obtained from either gold mines or through trade, and stone is collected from stone mines. Villagers require depository buildings; a town center, dock, or storehouse, where they can store gathered resources. Each civilization can research upgrades that increase the rate of gathering these resources. Players can construct a market for trade; enabling them to either trade wood, stone, and food for gold, and use gold to buy other resources. Market prices fluctuate with every transaction (supply vs. demand). Furthermore, markets (caravans) or docks (merchant transports) can also generate gold which are used to visit ally town centers and ports; once they return, gold is added to the stockpile. The amount of gold earned on each trip is related to the distance it had to travel to an ally destination. More gold is earned on longer trips. Players do not need to keep trading manually, as once they select the port or market, the trading units AI continue the trade route.

Units

Every player has a limit to the number of units they can create—a population limit—but may not immediately use the entire potential population. The population capacity, which is capped at 200, is based on the number of houses or Town Centers—the main building in a player's town—which have been built. There are two significant features for unit management: the idle villager button, which helps players identify villagers that have not been assigned a task, and the town bell, which sends all a player's villagers into their Town Center, Fortress, or tower for safety.

Age of Empires Online includes five types of military units: infantry, archers, cavalry, siege weaponry, and naval units. Certain types of infantry, archers, and cavalry are "counter units" with special defenses against other types of unit. The military classes generally follow a rock-paper-scissors model. For example, infantry are generally powerful against buildings but weak against cavalry, thus the infantry counter units—spearmen have attack bonuses against cavalry. Each civilization has unique units that are exclusive to that civilization, along with unique units obtained from Advisor cards. These Civilization-specific units are generally more powerful, but still follow the basic rock-paper-scissors model. The priest is a special kind of military unit that has the ability to convert enemy units to the player's civilization, and to heal allied units.^[5]

Buildings

The buildings in Age of Empires Online are either economic and military buildings. Buildings can research technologies and upgrades that increase economic, military or unit-based efficiency, as well as provide resources for the player. Different civilizations also possess buildings unique to their design and gameplay. The most important economic building is the Town Center, where villagers are created, all types of resources can be stored, some technologies are researched, and from which the player can advance to the next Age. The Town Center can fire arrows at enemy units within range. Other economic buildings available include the storehouse for resources, farms, docks (the dock may also produce several military ships), and houses to support a higher population. Military buildings include unit-producing buildings such as barracks, archery ranges, stables, and fortresses, as well as defensive buildings such as walls and towers. Military buildings can perform research to improve the abilities of military units, increasing their strength, defensive capabilities, or other attributes. The Fortress is a powerful military building which can train a variety of units, including the civilization's unique units, and fires arrows at enemy units within range. It can only be built after a player has reached the third age. There are also two main defensive buildings, the wall and the tower. There are several types of walls, their strength depending on how high the player specs them in their tech tree. Walls are used to prevent access to an enclosed area whilst providing a solid line of defense. Gates can be installed in the walls to allow allied units to traverse through. Watch posts are used for line of sight; while towers are equipped with the ability to fire arrows at unfriendly units, or garrison friendly units for protection, and can be used in conjunction with the wall in defense mechanisms.^[5]

Capital City

The Capital City is similar to the "Home City" concept implemented in Age of Empires III. The city functions as the player's home base for their civilization. It continues to operate within a persistent world even when the player logs out of the game, though it cannot be attacked or altered by other players. Through the Capital City, the player can manage quests, improve technologies, send mail, craft items, participate in player to player trade, acquire and equip new gear for individual units, and visit other player's cities.^[5] Stores built within the city can be visited by other players and currency used for the items purchased will add to the player's funds. Unlike the Home City from Age of Empires 3 where you can only customize the look of buildings, the Capital City is completely customizable; buildings and rewards can be place anywhere on the city map as the player chooses. Players can add buildings, rewards, houses as well as statues and bushes along with other things to decorate their Capital City. Two vanity packs, Bountiful Bushes and Glorious Gardening exist to add new bushes and statues for the player to use to decorate their Capital City. The city is also used as a gateway to other AI controlled cities within the region, where a player can visit and acquire new quests and items. The Capital City also has many different buildings that the player can build including:

• Gear Hall - Allows the player to view, equip, and remove gear to your units
• Advisor Hall - Allows the player to view, select and change which advisors they will be using in quests, skirmish, and standard PvP
• Arena - Allows the player to create custom PvP matches with their party members. It allows you to select maps, teams, and whether the PvP will be Standard or Champion Mode PvP.
• Stores - Allows the owner of the Capital City as well as any players that visit the Capital City to purchase consumables, advisors, recipes, and gear. There are currently many stores available for construction in the Capital City including, the Empire Store, General Store, Recipe Stores, Uncommon, Rare and Epic Armaments and Defenses Stores, and Glorious Gardening and Bountiful Bushes stores if the player has purchased the vanity packs. Additionally, if a player has purchased the premium pack for the civilization then they get a share from any purchases made by other players in their Capital City.
• Workshops - Produces materials at a constant rate for the player to use for constructing buildings, and making gear and consumables from craft schools.
• Embassy - Allows the player to sent, receive and view mail
• Palace - Allows the player to spent technology points and choose, customize and view their technology trees to be used in PvE.
• Treasury - Allows the player to keep track of their currencies and points that they have in game.
• Craft Schools - Produces gear and consumables for the player to use. There are currently 8 different craft schools that produce gears and consumables for different units. The Metalworking craft school is currently only available for the Celtic civilization. Each premium civilization that a player owns can have 2 different craft schools while non-premium civilizations can only have one craft school.
• Decorations - There are many different kinds of decorations that a player can currently build in their Capital City. This includes small, medium and large houses, Argos Cows, statues, bushes, trophies from Skirmish quests, etc.

Quests

Quests are main PvE aspect of the game. Quests generally involve fighting and defeating the CPU player. They are similar to the campaigns in previous Age of Empires games. They are completed when the objectives are met. Objectives in quests greatly vary, some quests involve defeating enemies, others involve protecting a building or unit, and some others involve collecting a certain amount of resources while defending from the enemy. Quests rewards include experience points, gold, empire points, chests, and sometimes gear. Some region specific quests, such as the "Argos Quests" also provide the player with a different kind of currency as well, the region points (Argos quests provide the player with Argos points). Certain quests also have a co-op option which allows the player to do the quest with another player to help them. Certain quests also have an "elite" version, which allows for the player to gain a greater amount of rewards but is more difficult and presents the player with a greater challenge.

The different civilizations also have different quest lines and have 80 unique quests that the other civilizations do not possess.^[6] However, some quests are shared by the civilizations such as the Argos-region quests. Some quests are repeatable while others can only be done once. Quest maps also contain treasure chests that the player can collect to attempt to get gear, consumables, materials and advisors. Units killed in quests, including treasure guardians provide the player with a certain amount of experience points, varying on the difficulty of the quest. Quests are unlocked in various ways, including reaching a certain level or having to have already have completed a quest. Quests often begin with the player starting with a set amount of resources, certain amount of villagers, buildings, military units and the scout.

Legendary quests

The five "Legendary quests" in the game are unlocked when the player reaches level 40. These quests are similar to the "elite" quests as they provide a greater amount of rewards than the regular version of the same quest. However, while the legendary quests allow the player to obtain lots of gold and empire points, they provide no experience as the player has already reached level 40, the maximum level in the game. Treasure chests in these quests may contain the elusive "legendary" gear which are rare, valuable, and provide good bonuses to units when equipped.

Alliance Wars

The developers announced that an endgame content pack called "Alliance Wars" will be released in the near future. The content will be designated towards level 40 players, and will consist of team-based competition revolving around three separate alliances. Players will be able to align themselves with a particular alliance and complete quests for powerful rewards and passive bonuses. Contests will also be available at daily, weekly, and monthly intervals.^[7]

PvP

PvP is another aspect of this game. PvP in this game can be started in one of two ways: by using Sparta PvP to find a random match, or by using the Arena in the capital city to play against a party member. Sparta PvP can be accessed by visiting the Sparta region in the world map. In Sparta PvP, there are two different types of PvP options. Standard PvP is the first option and allows the player to use star techs from their tech-tree as well as any gear and advisors that they have equipped in their capital city. This PvP option was first to be released. Champion mode PvP is the second Sparta PvP option. This is also sometimes known as ranked PvP while Standard PvP is known as unranked PvP. In this PvP option all gears, star techs and advisors are disabled and cannot be used to start the players off at an even footing. All gears equipped will provide the units with a cosmetic change but will not affect their stats like they would normally do in PvE missions.^[5]

In Sparta PvP, the player starts off with a minimal amount of resources, a few villagers and their scout. Map selection is random and cannot be chosen by either players. Champion mode PvP results will also determine your Trueskill ranking which is used to determine a player's rank globally as well as to help find the player a match and opponents for PvP. Currently, in Sparta PvP, there is an option for 1v1 PvP and 2v2 PvP. Rewards from Sparta PvP include experience points, empire points, gold and Sparta points which can be used in the stores in Sparta for chests, gear and consumables. PvP is also accessible through the Arena in the player's capital city. While identical to Sparta PvP in many ways, Arena PvP can different in many ways. In Arena PvP, you can play against any human opponent in your party as well as choose the map and teams (if it is a 2v2 match) before starting the game. Arena PvP does have a champion mode option so that gears, star techs and advisors can be disabled but Arena PvP will not affect your Sparta PvP Trueskill ranking. Finally, Arena PvP also does not provide any rewards to the winning player.

Civilizations

Currently four civilizations are available. Playable civilizations include the Greeks, Egyptians, and Celts, plus the Persian civilization that is currently only available to users who purchase the premium package.^[8] Each with individual sets of attributes, including a varying number of available technologies and units. Each civilization has technologies and units that are unique to them, so that no civilization possesses all the technologies or units possible within the game.

• Greeks - The Greeks were the first civilization to be released for Age of Empires Online along with the Egyptians. The are considered to be the most balanced civilization militarily as they are the only civilization that can make 3 units from the barracks (spearmen, hypaspist, hoplite), stables (sarisophorroi, prodromos, hippikon) and archery range (toxotes, peltast, gastraphetes). Also, they are the only civilization with the ballista siege weapon, a powerful bolt firing unit that does area of effect damage. The Greek naval units currently consist of the Trireme, a powerful all around ship, a fireship, an anti-ship unit that does bonus damage on other ships and the ballista trireme, a powerful, long ranged naval unit that is powerful against buildings to which they have a bonus against.

• Egyptians - The Egyptians were the second civilization to be released for AoEO and they were released at the game's launch with the Greek civilization. The Egyptians currently are the only civilization that possesses the mighty War Elephant, a powerful unit that is capable of dealing splash damage. however it is very expensive to train as a result. The Egyptians also have some units that are unique to only their civilization including, the camel, axemen and chariot archers. The Egyptians have a unique way of advancing to the next age. This involves building a temple to advance to the next age, unlike the other civilizations who research the tech in the Town Center. The priests and priestesses that can be trained at this temples are also unique units to this civilization. Finally, the Egyptians always begin a quest, or match with a priestess of Ra which provides them with a small resource carry bonus, 10%, for each villager (11 resources are dropped off instead of 10) allowing the Egyptians to have the best economy in the game.

• Persians - The Persians were the third civilization to be released for Age of Empires Online. They were originally planned to be released in the winter break along with the long-awaited Skirmish pack and Celts, however they were released early on October 19, 2011, months before the original date. ^[9] The Persians were only available as a "Pro Civilization," starting at level 20 (as opposed level 1 unlike the Greeks and Egyptians), came with preset "Hero" gear as well as a shorter quest line. Unlike the Greeks and Egyptians, the Persians were only usable if the "Pro Civilization" was purchased as there was no real free version of the civilization, unlike the Greek, Egyptians and the later released Celts, although there was a one quest only "demo version" of the civilization. The Persians, militarily, have powerful cavalry and cheaper but weaker naval units. The Persian cavalry is considered to be the strongest in the game. Cavalry units of the Persians include the Asabara (a well rounded cavalry unit), Mounted Archer (a anti-cavalry unit) and the Cataphract (a powerful, expensive anti-infantry unit). The Persian navy consists of the galley, ram ship and the mangonel galley. These naval units are the equivalent units to the Greek Trireme, fire ship and ballista trireme respectively albeit being cheaper and weaker than their Greek counterparts. Another Persian unique unit includes the Immortal, which is both a ranged and infantry unit. Finally, Persians also have "toggle-techs" can be turned on and off at the player's desire. These toggle techs provide certain bonuses while at the same time giving certain penalties (e.g. decrease unit production time but increase cost per unit)

• Celts - The Celts were the fourth and most recently released civilization for Age of Empires Online. The Celts in the Celt campaign are based on the Gauls in France around the fourth and third centuries BC as opposed to the ones in Britain which did not have as much contact with the rest of the world at the time. ^[10] Unlike the Persians, the Celts were delayed significantly and were released on March 27, 2012 as part of the Spring Patch for the game. ^[6] The Celts are an infantry based civilization and have many infantry units including the Spearmen, Long Swordsmen, Woad Raider and the powerful Champions. However, as a result of having many infantry units, the civilization lacks in cavalry and can only make their first cavalry unit, the horseman in Age 3, unlike all other civilizations which can make cavalry units in the second age. The Celt's navy is also lacking as they can only make the Swanship, the equivalent to the Galley and Trireme, but do not have an equivalent for the fire/ram ship, or the ballista/mangonel trireme/galley. The Celt age up is also different and does not require and wood for the age up for ages 2 and 3 but do require a greater amount of food and gold than the other civilizations. The Celt age up also requires that the player have constructed a certain amount of houses first before they can advance to the next age. The Celts however, are the only ones able to construct gold mines which also for the player to collect gold without the use of a drop site unlike other civilizations. The gold mine can garrison a certain amount of villagers and gold is collected faster and more efficiently. The Celts also have the unique units, the Augur and the Druid. Both of these units are capable of healing allied units as well as providing bonuses to the Celtic military units. The Druid provides a damage bonus to Celtic units and has a powerful attack. The Augur also heals units but also provides buffs to the Celtic units such as a temporary speed buff, or lower unit production time for buildings but at the cost of sacrificing a Sacred Deer. Both of these support units as well as the Sacred Deer are trained from the Celtic Sacred Grove. It is also notable that the Celts do not possess a siege workshop unlike the other civilizations and must rely on building the much more expensive fortress in order to make siege units. The Celtic civilization also possesses a different craft school that no other civilization can access, the Metalworking Craft school. This craft school specializes in making gear for Celtic units as well as making consumables such as ones that decrease enemy units attack, or increase certain units speeds, or allow for the construction of a storehouse without spending any resources.

Development

The developers intended for the game to be reminiscent of the previous games from the series, yet have a "bold and more graphic look with a lot of character".^[11]

Age of Empires Online, under the working title Project S,^[12] was to be the first game developed by Robot Entertainment, a company founded by former staff members of Ensemble Studios, who created the Age of Empires series. The game was officially announced on August 16, 2010. Robot was hired by Microsoft to develop the game over a 24 month period. The entire studio team focused on it as their sole project, in an effort to earn startup funds for Robot's future projects.^[13]

During early production, Age of Empires Online was originally called Age of Empires IV. The development team had noticed that over the years many other RTS game developers had moved away from the "economic game". The team felt that Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings had blended the economic and military aspects of the game perfectly, so they decided to play test it with hindsight. They noticed that many features from the game had been lost or changed over time for its successors. It was during this time the team decided to do an "Age of Kings style gameplay in an Age of Empires setting". The designers were surprised that fans of the series were most fond of the simpler aspects of the previous titles. Former Age of Empires II lead designer Ian M. Fischer stated, "When we started floating some of the early [AoEO] out to people other pieces fell into place – I cannot tell you how many times I have had someone email me or talk to me at a show and mention how much they loved the villagers carrying big hunks of meat in the original Age or the priest "wololo"". From that point on, one of the goals was to invoke nostalgia from fans of the series when playing the game, despite the newer and updated features.^[14]

The decision to make the game online-only was based in part on the success of Age of Empires II and the popularity of its online integration with MSN Gaming Zone. Since online player interaction through the game was made a priority by the studio, two iterations of the game had to be created; a server version and a client version. This resulted in a heavily modified version of the BANG engine used in previous games of the series, along with requiring large amounts of additional sever code and infrastructure to be implemented. Excluding the tools, Age of Empires Online contains over 1.2 million lines of code.^[15]

In designing the new look for the game, Robot had six artists come together to create a new art style which would look similar to the previous games from the series, yet look more "visually appealing", "timeless", and "bright". Among the art team was Ensemble Studios' first artist Brad Crow, who had worked on every Age of Empires game produced by the studio. The team implemented several ideas to give the game an improved core visual interface over that of its predecessors such as; increasing the field of view so that the player was able to see more on the screen, a tighter user interface to allow more of the field of play to be visible, a new building design to make them encompass less screen space - while also making them look more unique, and giving each unit a unique look and animation making them more easily distinguishable from each other.^[11]

On February 24, 2011, it was announced - first via Chris Taylor's Facebook page - that Gas Powered Games had taken over development from Robot Entertainment. According to a blog post^[16] that appeared on the game's website, Gas Powered Games was already working on the game behind the scenes,^[17][18] creating content packs and moving to take over as lead developers, which was planned for some time. The game was released on August 16, 2011 with the Greek and Egyptian civilizations, followed by the Persians during the holiday. The Celts was postponed to March 2012, and was the first out of the four civilizations solely created from start to finish by Gas Powered Games since taking over development.^[19]

Premium Content

Currently the game offers Premium Content to players as its form of micro-transactions. These include cosmetic items for your capital for 400 Microsoft points ($4.99 USD/€4.80 Euro), Add-on packs for 800 Microsoft points ($10 USD/€9.60 Euro) (special missions that are replayable and have a high degree of customization), as well as a "Premium Civilization" and a "Pro Civilization". As of Q1 of 2012 the prices have been lowered as part of the game's launch on steam, being dropped to roughly $5 per piece of content, be it a premium civilization or a DLC. As part of the game's launch on Steam, prices were lowered and Steam offered all "premium" content and booster packs in the game for $16.99 as part of the "All in Wonder Bundle"^[20] The game's prices for a "premium civ" has since been reverted back to the previous $9.99 per civilization.^[21] The current price for the "All In Wonder Bundle" is now $29.99 ^[22] allowing the customer to save $19.95 by buying the bundle. Premium civilizations allow a player access to rare, epic and legendary quality items and allow the use of advisors, which give unique benefits to their civilization, such as new unit types or better existing units. Premium civilizations also raise item storage capacity to a maximum of 96 slots and give access to the full tech tree. Pro civilizations are only available by purchase, and start off at level 20 and have no beginner quests, but otherwise function like Premium civilizations.

The develepors announced that in summer 2012, the current purchasing system will be discontinued, while all past and future premium content will be purchased through "Empire points" earned in game. The option to purchase the points with real money will also be available.^[23]

Booster Packs

Age of Empires Online currently has two booster packs that have been released. These booster packs allow for the player to enjoy and experience new very customizable PvE gameplay. These booster packs add new content to the game as well as offering the player a way to test strategies and gain experience points to level up, gold and empires points. These booster packs also have quests that allow for the player to construct new vanity statues to decorate their capital city with. The booster packs also give the player advisors and gear that can not otherwise be collected by the player.

• Defense of Crete - The Defense of Crete booster pack is the first booster pack to be released for Age of Empires Online. This booster pack allows the player to play PvE missions that is similar to classic tower defense games. In these missions, the player must defend the wonder from waves of enemies that are being to destroy it. A Defense of Crete match can be started by visiting the Crete region from the world map and clicking on the appropriate building once the player has purchased the Defense of Crete booster pack. This booster pack offers a lot of customization such as with difficulty and the number of waves that are being sent to the player. Defense of Crete games are 2 player co-op capable so the player can invite another player to help them out. The gameplay involves the player(s) starting off with a fixed amount of resources, a scout and a few villagers. The player(s) must put up defenses and make an army in order to be able to resist the enemy waves of attack. The player(s) are given a 3 minute grace period at the beginning of the game before the first wave of enemies attack. Typically, the waves of enemies increase in difficulty as the game plays on as later waves include larger numbers of units and more powerful units. The game is won if the wonder survives all waves that are sent. Rewards for successfully playing a Defense of Crete match include materials, gold, experience, empire points, Crete points, chests and vanity statues to decorate your capital city with.

• Skirmish - The Skirmish booster pack is the second booster pack to be released for Age of Empires Online. The Skirmish booster pack adds allows the player to choose every element of PvE gameplay in Age of Empires Online.^[24] This allows the player to customize amount of player resources, select maps, map size, victory condition, map resources, difficulty of the CPU players, civilization to be used to the computer player, number of human as well as computer players and the AI/strategy that will be used by the computer player(s). In Skirmish mode, all units and ages are automatically unlocked for the player(s) to use in battle regardless of the player's level. Not all technologies are unlocked for the player to use however, and the technologies that a player can use depends on the what the player has already unlocked in their technology trees. ^[24] The Skirmish hall can be accessed in the Cyprus region in the world map after the player has purchased the booster pack. By winning a Skirmish match, the player(s) receive a reward of experience points, coin, empire points and chests. Rewards are based on the difficulty, map size, number of starting resources, number of allies and enemies, etc. In addition to this, there are several global quests that the player can complete by playing skirmish matches. Completing these quests are the only way to get certain advisors and statues to decorate you capital city with. ^[24] Currently, the player is able to fight on over 20 maps. ^[24] Skirmish supports 4 player co-op against up to 4 computer players.^[25] The Skirmish pack allows the player to battle 9 unique computer opponents, 8 with unique tactics and one with random tactics. ^[24] For computer players, there are currently 5 different difficulty levels ranging from unstoppable (hardest) to weak (weakest). The difficulty level also determines what gear the computer player's units will be using with weak using uncommon gears to unstoppable using epic gears. ^[24] A typical Skirmish match begins with the player starting off at the selected starting age, resources, a scout and a few villagers. A game is complete when the player meets the victory condition, which could either be a standard victory (destroy all enemy town centers), conquest (kill and destroy all units) or wonder victory (be the first to complete a wonder or kill all units).

Vanity Packs

There are currently three vanity packs for Age of Empires Online, with plans to release more in the future.^[26] All three of these packs provide the player with blueprints to stores that allow the player to purchase new items to use to customize and decorate their capital city with in game gold.

Reception

Reception
Aggregate scores
Aggregator	Score
GameRankings	70.20%[27]
Metacritic	70/100[28]
Review scores
Publication	Score
1UP.com	C+[29]
Edge	6/10 [30]
Eurogamer	7/10[31]
GameSpot	6.5/10[32]
IGN	7.0/10[33]
Cheat Code Central	(4.2/5)[34]
GamesRadar US	6/10[35]
Joystiq	7/10[36]
MeriStation	8/10[37]
OnGames (Softonic.com)	6/10[38]
PC Magazine	[39]
Vandal (20 minutos)	8/10[40]

Age of Empires Online received generally positive reviews, garnering an aggregated review score of 70 on Metacritic.^[28] Some critics praise the co-operative missions, graphics, and familiar Age of Empires gameplay. However, many critics were critical of the price of the game's premium content.

GameSpot gave the game a 6.5/10, noting the PvP matchmaking system, enemy AI, and pricing as weak points, but stated, "Age of Empires Online effectively infuses its conventional real-time strategy gameplay with massively multiplayer online-style loot and leveling mechanics."^[41] GameShark gave the game a "C" rating and said that "Age of Empires Online feels very much like a Microsoft product; it’s trying to be everything at once and does only most of those things aptly."^[42] IGN gave the game a 7/10, with reviewer Nick Kolan critical of the game's best features being restricted to the premium content purchases. However, Kolan closed by saying, "For all its flaws, I can’t help but like Age of Empires Online. Caught somewhere between massively-multiplayer online role-playing game and hardcore competitive real-time strategy, Age of Empires Online delivers some of the most addictive parts of both."^[33] PC Magazine gave the game 3.5 out of 5 stars, and complimented the in-game artwork as "well done" and "nicely scalable", but felt the free to play aspect should have offered more to the player. Reviewer Matthew Murray wrote, "Age of Empires Online is highly enjoyable, and I found myself afflicted with one-more-turn-itis when a fiendish mission objective captivated (or frustrated) me. That’s not the case with every game I play—and it’s not nothing."^[39]

GameSpy reviewer Mike Sharkey panned the game in his initial review,^[43] but after the game received a major overhaul patch he later stated, "Well, AoE Online is now on Steam, and courtesy of a massive spring patch, the vast majority of the problems I had with it have been addressed."^[44] PC Gamer initially game the game a 65/100 at launch,^[45] but later reviewed the game after the Celts campaign debut giving it a score of 90/100 and calling it, "The best free RTS gaming you'll find, the Celts bring AoEO two steps closer to greatness."^[46]

See also

• List of strategy video games
• Age of Empires
• List of MMOGs
• List of microsoft games

External links

• Official website
• Empire Handbook
• Robot Entertainment page
• Age of Empires Online on Steam

References